


Too many thorns grow among the roses

by asparagusmama



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode Related, Falling Darkness, Gen, Introspection, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura knew she was completely over 'it'...Wasn't she?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too many thorns grow among the roses

At first Laura thought she was okay. James stayed with her, holding her until she felt calm enough to pull away and regain some composure. She was never sure what exactly went on with James and Robbie, so it felt odd, wrong, hugging him. If anyone, she would have preferred Lewis to have been there, but of course, Robbie would be the one to charge after the murderers, her avenging angel, her knight in shining armour. Perhaps she preferred it that way after all.

James had sat beside her then, listening as she felt like describing, patchily, what happened – they had drugged her and she still felt woozy and dry mouthed – until uniform and an ambulance arrived. James directed them to follow Robbie to the ruined building after getting a couple of officers to help them out of the ditch.

Ditch, Laura always, from that moment on, tried to think of the hole, but deep down she knew it to be a grave: her grave.

But she was fine. Absolutely fine. Of course she was. Jean wanted her to see a counsellor, and she had a couple of sessions where they talked of bereavement and anger, of bruises, and a fear of dying. Jean also suggested a holiday, as did her hospital line manager. It seemed like a good idea, so she took two weeks leave and got on to last minute dot come straight away.

A couple of weeks in Crete in mid November were ideal. Lovely. Laura had a top floor room with a massive balcony that over-looked the sea. It wasn’t exactly scorching, but the weather was warm and sunny: a damn sight warmer than a damp, foggy, chilly England in November, that was for certain.

Everyday, Laura got up late, ate a leisurely buffet breakfast at the hotel before venturing out to explore on foot and on buses. She visited Knossos, saw the mythical site of the Labyrinth of the Minotaur, and visited lots of churches and ruins, as well as plenty of beach-combing, gathering up a pretty collection of shells, pebbles and small bones. She took lazy, long lunches in the tavernas she came to, picking at Greek salads and mezes and sticky pastries, reading and watching people go by. In the evening she ate haute cuisine dinners and retired early to bed with another good book. She felt rested. And perhaps a little bit too fat and lazy. But that was fine. She needed to spoil herself. She was fine.

Yes, she felt good. She was doing okay. She had put all that nasty business behind her and was ready to move on with her life as if nothing had happened. Police officers she worked with through her forensic pathology frequently had awful things happened to them and they were fine. So was she. At the end of the day, Robbie and James had been there for her and she was okay. Nothing had actually happened.

She returned home rested, tanned, and several pounds heavier, completely secure in the knowledge she was utterly over her kidnap and attempted murder; ready to put it all behind her.

 

*  
Laura had always enjoyed to garden, right from when she was small. As a little girl she had always been the one to help her father in the garden; it had been their special time, their father-daughter time together, the time it was just the two of them and she didn’t have to share him with her mother and two sisters. As a young teen she offered to help out in her Grandmother’s cottage garden and as Granny grew older and frailer she took over more and more. As a student it was easy and a joy to make a little money doing the gardens for those who would pay her.

Yes, for Laura, gardening was her relaxation, her escape, her therapy. She assumed it would always be so, that she would always have her roses, her rockeries and her flowerbeds, her vegetables and orchards. She has chosen her house for its large garden with its huge potential. She had spent years nurturing her roses, planning the layout, including the small vegetable patch and small orchard of miniature apple, pear and cherry trees. It was her space of calm and solitude, a quiet time and place to unwind and put aside all thoughts of violent, needless death, of the endless snipping and prying into a body that once had contained whatever spark it was that made a person human, that contained the essence that others mourned and grieved and missed and relied on her to make sense for them, to give them closure or the police clues to catch and punish the guilty party, if there had been one. People relied on her for the answers. The garden relied on her for nurture and space and calm. Yes, she loved her garden.

So, Laura gave no more thought to it. It was over and done with. She also gave little thought to her garden. It was winter, the vegetable patch and flowerbeds already dug over in preparation for the spring planting, and she threw herself into her work. She had new students to get to know, final year students to help through their finals. She employed a retired neighbour to attend to the boring chores of maintenance and the pulling of potatoes and carrots throughout the winter months. Her garden was her peace and joy; no point freezing herself half to death when she could afford to pay someone else for those bitter, cold, joyless, thankless tasks of the winter months.

Come spring, Laura turned her mind back to her garden. It had been a long, hard winter, but by the end of March the weather grew milder as the days grew longer. She began to plan what she might plant and spent her first Sunday off duty in her favourite garden centre.

The following Saturday was a bright, frost free morning and Laura got up early, taking her coffee with her as she walked through her large, well laid out, beautiful, garden, planning out her day in her head as she went. She returned to the house and indulged in a cooked breakfast to give her the energy for her plans of digging and planting.

Her beloved roses first, long overdue some tender loving care after the long, harsh winter. She was looking forward to it, so Laura was stunned by the terrifying flashbacks she experienced as soon as her gloved hands and trowel turned over the deep, rich soil.

Damp, most, cloying earth, falling in clods on to her face, into her screaming mouth... while that girl stood above, impassive, watching...

Laura got up. Went back inside. Made a cup of coffee.

She tidied the kitchen. No, she completely reorganised the kitchen. Then she made lunch, which she could not eat, and instead did the crossword in the paper. She decided on a large glass of wine and flicked through the TV channels. Every so often she would glance out of the window at her garden; at the abandoned trowel and gardening gloves lying beside the rose bed glaring accusingly at her, taunting her with her weakness and fragility.

After the wine, Laura glared at herself in the mirror above the mantel in her living room, giving herself a stern talking to and disapproving hard stare. After her pep talk to herself she steeled herself to return to the roses.

Cloying. Damp. Smelling of earth and wet loam. Clumps of mud. Clods of earth. Falling. Suffocating. She was alone. Tied. That mad bitch, watching. Her husband, her twin, whatever, just as crazy, shovelling the damp, wet, clinging, suffocating earth on to her...

Sunday was no better. 

In fact, it was worse.

*

Ten days on rota followed, and the Wednesday and Thursday off in lieu of the weekend poured relentlessly with rain, much to her secret relief. The following weekend off she went to visit her father in his nursing home. He asked after her garden and for the first time in years, since she was a (very) rebellious, young, teen, Laura lied to her father. She told him of all she had ‘done’ since the frosts had gone and all of her plans to extend the roses and to try marigolds between the rows of lettuces, cabbage and leeks. This wasn’t a lie; she had indeed made plans that the embarrassing weakness and flashbacks had prevented her carrying out.

By May it was too late for much of what Laura had planned, also for what she would do every year. Things were left to rot, run riot, or fall fallow. Her garden was no longer her oasis of calm and tranquillity; it was a chamber of horrors.

Of course, if this had been happening to a friend or colleague, Laura would have suggested immediately some form of therapy or counselling. But she was Laura Hobson, the tough one. She had no time for the indulgence of weakness or vulnerability. She knew, deep down, she needed to talk to someone, have some proper therapy even. Instead, she ignored it. To admit after so long a time had passed since the abduction that she was still so badly shaken was... embarrassing.

Laura tried one more time, to plant some simple late summer and autumn flowers such as crocus and dahlia and some parsnips, carrots, potatoes and squash for the autumn and winter, and to again to try to tend to her beloved roses long since left in the care of Mr. Goodman.

The earth was not so cold and wet, but still the flashbacks came so strongly Laura had to choke back a scream.

Too embarrassed and ashamed to ask for help, to admit her weakness, the following weekend of rota, Laura spent, not time in her garden and visiting garden centres as in years gone by before – that - happened, as she knew that was something long lost to her, but in Estate Agents and online looking at properties to rent closer to the city centre or in Headington and North Way, close to the John Radcliffe.

By the following November, one year one, Laura had found tenants for her beloved house and garden and moved to a rented flat – an expensive, exclusive, beautiful town flat, second floor, with no garden to speak off. She began to collect books, first editions, antiques, series of her favourite authors. She spent her free time no longer in garden centres and browsing seed catalogues, and most certainly not gardening! No, she spent time searching second hand bookshops and bric a brac stalls, and reading as much as she could. She suspected that people might be forgiving and understanding of her weakness and desire for escape. She felt more than certain that James Hathaway would understand, but she really couldn’t bear to talk to anyone, let alone him, she could not have borne his sympathetic understanding. 

Instead, she told herself that she would one day get over all this... thing. And when she did, she would evict her tenants and go home to her garden.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me as we were watching our bedtime Lewis - Falling Darkness in honour of Halloween, as we always do on the the 31st Ocotber :)


End file.
